


I am the sea, and I will reach you

by sidnihoudini



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Community: trek_rpf_kink, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thanks for letting me know that Silver Lake's golden couple broke up," Zoe snaps at him the next morning, trawling through his sleep addled routine with reckless abandon. Zach squints into the sun pooling through the kitchen windows, and braces himself with one hand against the counter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am the sea, and I will reach you

"Like you'd notice if I were gone," Zach teases him, spread out over the armchair in their living room, both of his socks in two oddly shaped balls on the floor, his bare feet hanging dangerously close to the coffee table.

Still unable to grasp the entire texting on a QWERTY keyboard with two thumbs objective, Chris looks up from where he's trying to text somebody back on his phone without accidentally sending the message off preemptively.

All of his good friends know that most of his messages arrive in two parts, the second usually beginning with _ARGH._

"Are you trying to pick a fight?" Chris responds, raising his eyebrows, tone of voice full of logic and _relationship wisdom._ Zach tries to imagine Chris sitting in as a guest star on Loveline. Chris' thumb pauses over the keys. "You know I'd miss you, and of course I'd notice."

Before Zach can get the appropriately smarmy rebuttal in, Chris has wandered back into the kitchen, with his head still bowed low to read the small text on his cell phone, his feet shuffling bare against the throw rug in the hall.

Zach leans his head back against the hardest, most uncomfortable section of the arm chair, swallows hard, and stretches his toes until they cramp.

.

Zoe throws her youngest sister the girliest, most red themed party that Simone has possibly ever seen, and Zach buys a brand new suit just for the occasion. He and Chris get ready in the hotel room bathroom, Zachary for upwards of an hour and Chris for just twenty minutes, and then take the elevator down to the lobby where there's a town car waiting.

"Your shirt is past the point of repulsive," Zach tells Chris in the back seat of the car, voice turned down with disdain. "You couldn't have ironed it, at least?"

Looking away from where he'd otherwise been content to sit and watch the city roll passed the car window, Chris raises his eyebrows, and purses his lips a little. Zach raises his eyebrows to match, a battle he always wins, and straightens the front of his own suit jacket. He has great morale towards this particular outfit; he's sure Zoe will love it.

"I'll borrow one of Keith's shirts before we leave for the bar," Chris reasons, diffusing the situation before Zach has a chance to get a handle on what he's doing. "Red looks great on you, by the way."

Zach doesn't respond right away, and then they're spending the next three blocks just watching each other evenly, swaying back and forth against the leather seats just short of long enough for Zach to think of something that is quick, dry, and sharp enough to sting.

But by the time he does, Chris has gone back to staring out the window, a glazed over expression on his face, and Zach feels itchy, uncomfortable in his not at all well-worn or loved suit.

.

Zach tries every mixed drink on the menu and ends his night on both knees, bent over the public toilet in the bathrooms at Simone.

In fact, it isn't until he's flushed three different times that Chris even comes in, tucking himself into the stall beside Zach effortlessly. All of Zach's fingers remained splayed against the floor, still in tact, and not tread on by Chris' dress shoes in the process.

"I called for a taxi," Chris says, quietly, crouching down in the space between Zach's too warm body and the wall. His knees creak with effort to not touch the ground as he rests his hand palm down on the nape of Zach's neck, comforting. "It should be here in ten minutes, maybe not even that."

Zach gasps against the taste of alcohol burning in his mouth, and closes his eyes, still too drunk to do much other than simply cooperate as his body retches again, ribs creaking as his body rolls and he has to brace himself against the toilet in effort to keep from falling in.

"I don't love you anymore," He blurts out, voice tightening up into what could almost be considered a squeal as he squeezes his eyes closed and tightens his grip around the toilet, nails sliding over the glazed porcelain with the mere effort of holding on.

The fingers stuck against Zach's sticky, sweaty neck twitch, and then they curl up, knuckles resting loosely on top of the bundled muscles there. Zach stays quiet, listening to the movement of Chris' suit jacket, the sound of his arm brushing along the wall as he stands up.

Heaving into the toilet again, Zach lets his feet drop out from underneath him as he falls onto his hip, the sheer gravity of the situation winning out as he forgoes trying to keep his balance all together. He listens as Chris leaves the bathroom, letting the door swing closed silently – decisively – behind him.

.

Zach wakes up the next morning on his side of the bed, wearing the suit he bought last week, only now the legs are rucked up around his calves, and the jacket is twisted up uncomfortably around his back.

Head pounding, he picks his chin up off of the pillow, and tries to focus on something that isn't spinning in quite the same fashion that his brain seems to be. Zach grimaces and rolls over onto his back, breathing as deeply and as methodically as he can before he heaves himself up into a sitting position.

The room spins at an increased frequency before suddenly crashing to a stop.

Licking his lips, Zach toes off both dress shoes against the carpet, wiggles out of his suit jacket to let it crumple against the mattress, and stands up. Both pant legs fall back into typical pant leg position.

In fact, it isn't until he's woozy on his feet and standing in the bathroom brushing away at his teeth that he even remembers what he said to Chris last night; how he had said it. Suddenly the tooth brush gags him, and the memory saturates his brain so thoroughly that Zach feels his skin crawl, and then he's throwing up again, retching into the bathroom sink that has Chris' toothbrush sat against its side, Chris bottle of American Crew pomade right there for anybody who wants to see it.

Spitting stubbornly into the sink, Zach frowns, and then glances up at his reflection in the mirror. He doesn't know how it ever got this bad.

.

Chris shows up at the house a day later.

"I stayed with a friend in Glassell Park," He says, quietly, forgoing the truth that Zach _knows_ all of his friends _anywhere_, as he throws the dry cleaners bag Zach assumes contains the other night's suit over the back of a kitchen chair.

Eyebrow raising, Zach looks up from where he's attempting to reheat his prepackaged portobello mushroom burger, and replies, "A bunch of mail from your mother came this morning. I left it all on the table in the living room."

There's a certain stand off that happens just then, and it starts off with Zach's flippant look as he holds the serrated knife in one hand, and sucks the little piece of onion that got stuck to the pad of his thumb off the other. While Chris takes in Zach's words, Zach raises his eyebrows and watches as Chris' eyes flash, his nostrils flare, light like he's fighting against himself to keep from fighting with Zach.

Zach glances down at the counter, and feels the warm pit in his stomach turn to ice.

"I just came to get my computer and the charger for my phone," Chris tells him, sounding tired, wound down. Zach can't help but glance back up: Chris Pine, being something other than well-rounded, well-slept, and well-fucked? "I'll be gone again before you know it."

Licking his lips, Zach treads over his thoughts, carefully now, and pushes the blade of his knife against the top of the mushroom patty. It slides through and hits the counter with a decisive _thunk_, and without much effort from Zach.

And, even if it's only a small battle, it's one that he himself has won.

.

"Thanks for letting me know that Silver Lake's golden couple broke up," Zoe snaps at him the next morning, trawling through his sleep addled routine with reckless abandon. Zach squints into the sun pooling through the kitchen windows, and braces himself with one hand against the counter.

Zach can hear her fuming through the phone.

"I haven't broken up with him," Zach says, not realizing what he sounds like until he hears Zoe's returning laughter, sharp, and like most girls that Zach has ever known at one point or another in his life, _mean._

There's a pause. This horrible, grey matter shape hanging in the air over both of their heads before Zoe announces, voice pointed, "Honey, you are not the only one in this relationship. And, from what I've heard, it's pretty safe to say that the one you _were_ in? Is no longer."

"Yeah, well," Zach snaps, his morning immediately turning sour. "It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?"

.

It takes Zach three years to get Chris out of his life completely.

There are a lot of little things that go into separating with somebody important enough to you to create documents and joint accounts and memberships with – it goes a lot further than dropping all of his left behind belongings into three cardboard boxes, and shipping them halfway across the city via FedEx.

Finally Zach gets Sam's Club to stop sending him the membership newsletters addressed to KRISTOPHER PINE. The Netflix is re-routed to Chris' new address. He re-records the answering machine message on the landline, and takes Chris' name and cell number off of the security account.

It takes Zach three years to get Chris out of his life completely, and exactly one night for him to come thundering back in, snapping Zach's natural doggedness in half and leaving it for whoever wants him bad enough to chew on it.

.

"You're seeing somebody new," Chris heaves, his head rolling back against the bathroom wall, chin tipping back, throat tightening and then releasing as Zach fingerfucks him hard, hard enough to lose his own breath over it, to resign full heartedly with his forehead pressed flat against the boniest part of Chris' shoulder.

Laughing breathlessly, Zach hitches Chris further up the wall, and feels his cock pulse against the inside seam of his pants at the sound Chris makes in retribution.

"Yeah," He manages, voice cracking as his tongue slides down the line of Chris' throat instead, curving over the pulse points he finds ticking there. "Blue eyes," He looks pointedly up at Chris' face; Chris flicks his down to study Zach's expression. "Black hair. Kind of like Elvis."

Chris gulps, throat working, red beginning to creep out in a flush from beneath the collar of his pressed dress shirt.

"Yeah?" He murmurs, eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling before he manages to regain his composure, and steels himself to look back down at Zach, breath coming heavy back up at him and not in any kind of rhythm.

Gripping at Chris' torso – warm skin, that familiar feeling, soft and pliable, all of these things that Zach hadn't been able to describe anyone else as with quite such reckless abandon as he had been able to do with Chris before he was dumped – Zach hitches him further up the wall, until Chris can get one of his legs wrapped around his hips.

"Yeah," Zach says again, chest blooming heat, fingers clutching tighter. "Isn't you, though."

The look that Chris gives him levels him down to the ground and, in a second, he's right back at the starting point again, one toe brushing the white line drawn in the ground as the other readies behind himself, ready to chase down any bad decisions he may come to make.

"Nobody is," Zach says, almost, but then he's burying his face in Chris' shoulder and neither of them actually hear the words, instead drowned out by the sound of their breathing, and the friction gathered between Chris' clothing and the wall.

.

Chris sleeps at his house that night.

"For such a highly evolved guy, you sure have your moments," Zach is told, sleepily, in the foggy haze of love that has them both in Zach's bed, in sheets and under a blanket that Chris has never seen before.

Zach's mouth is resting against the inside of Chris' arm: he picks his head up a fraction to talk.

"I didn't know how to tell you," He reasons, quietly. Softly.

Snorting despite himself, Chris raises his eyebrows and asks, voice a little sharper than the current situation requires, "So after six months of treating me like I was a piece of trash, you decided to blurt it out _while puking_, in the bathroom of a martini bar that Zoe decided to have her poor sister's birthday party in?"

"For the record," Zach swallows, still tasting that night on the back of his tongue. "I didn't mean for it to happen that way."

Chris rolls his eyes halfway, but remains with his head on Zach's pillow.

"If you didn't love me anymore, all you had to do was tell me to my face," Chris says, quietly, the expression on his face more than betraying the casual tone in his voice. "You broke my heart that night."

Rubbing at the curve of his eye socket with the inside line of his thumb, Zach tries to explain himself, tries to say, _Well, long story short, I wanted you to end it with me so I wouldn't have to man up and end it with you first, and the only reason I_ wanted _to end it myself was so that, one day, in the maybe not so distant future, you_ couldn't _end it with me first._

"I'm sorry," Zach says, instead. "I'm sorry."

Chris frowns, kind of, but settles his head into the pillow case with an ounce more solidarity.

"You were right that night, though," He replies, with the tiniest hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he watches Zach. "I didn't iron my shirt, just to see if you noticed."

A burst of something that feels a lot like anger and regret bubbles up into the highest part of his throat as he takes Chris' words in, the meaning of them – none of which is lost on Zach.

"_I'm sorry_," He says for the third time, his voice shaking this time as he reaches across and pulls Chris forward by the back of the head, kissing him on the mouth to keep from drowning in the deep sinking feeling that follows regret.

.

They're at Whole Foods a week and a half later, still trying to navigate that bumpy terrain that getting back together with the love of your life is situated on. Chris is standing beside him, talking at length about how his Blackberry's auto-correct includes the word 'ween', and Zach is trying to decide whether or not he should go with his normal Kashi flavor, or try something new. It's also labeled as 'exciting.'

"I love you so much," Zach says, with one hand wrapped around the side of the box of cereal still on the shelf, and Chris standing there, with one thumb braced against his bottom lip as he scrolls down the auto-correct list on his phone with the other.

Zach makes a face as though the words surprised even himself, and pulls the cereal box down forcefully, watching as Chris stares back at him with both eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. Zach tries to catch his breath, his heart running a cold case already thundering to its death inside of his chest.

"I know," Chris says after a beat of silence that resonates in them both. He shuffles to the side when an old woman tries to get at the bulk bags of multigrain cereal behind him, so Zach nods and tries hard to get his breath back out of his chest.

It isn't as easy as it sounds.

.

When they had first gotten together, way before JJ's film was even thought of, and acting in any kind of role other than "the gay best friend" had only been a blip on the radar, Zach had spent a lot of his time thinking about Chris, debating with himself, and trying to tie up the loose ends that frayed out all around him whenever the mere mention of Chris came up.

Kirsten had done a couple of auditions with him when he'd first started getting some parts – he'd introduced her to Tori Spelling and that had been what had sealed their friendship at first – and would analyze with him, over margaritas and Mexican food as they sat nestled under plastic Corona party flags in the darkest, moodiest corner of the themed restaurant.

"You're being insecure again," She'd tell him, when he'd spill his heart to her over the little Mexican hat candles that were lit and dangerously close to catching said Corona flags on fire. "He isn't going to leave you, and he isn't going to cheat on you, and _you are not going to push him away _just because you think there is a chance of one of those things happening."

Zach spent a lot of time in that gloomy dusk of the first eight months of their relationship sitting in that little hole in the wall that served the tastiest burritos this side of the border. He still remembers texting Chris from that back booth, heart positively throbbing with love at the memory of him.

"Never say never," Zach would tell Kristen, fingers poised over the keys of his brick shaped phone as they'd wait for the third round of drinks to come. "I know his type."

Rolling her eyes, Kristen would placate him for fifteen minutes before interrupting, telling him, "You don't know everybody's intentions before they even… intend them."

"Okay, first, you're drunk," He'd rebut, trying to suck the last lifeblood out of the lime his previous drink had come with. "And second of all, you don't know gay men like I do."

They'd argue the point until their food came, and then, in the dark swill of one too many drinks, would wander back to Zach's house, where Kristen would curl up on the couch and be gone by the time morning came, while Zach would stagger back to his bedroom and crawl in beside Chris, who had usually left the light on and fallen asleep with his laptop open on his knees.

.

Now, Zach looks at Chris and that catchy LIVE song starts to play in his head – ante only being upped when Chris looks back across the room, and suddenly, brain damage. Zach finds himself staggering into the wall and falling down onto the carpet with the sheer weight of knowing what that kind of love ends up feeling like.

Five years ago Zach would have looked at Chris, and thought, you could be anybody. I could replace you just as easily as you could replace me.

But now, Zach thinks about how Chris sits at his kitchen table, wearing an open cardigan and his American Apparel underwear, trying to rub the sleep out of one eye with his left hand while simultaneously keeping his glasses on his face with the right. He tries to change Chris' eyes to brown or his hair to black, darker skin, a little taller – and the memory fizzles out, leaving Zach with a sick taste in his mouth and an uncomfortable feeling in his shoulders.

Now he looks at Chris and, and…

He just knows, now.


End file.
